A Wabash Trailer Can Save You Thousands Over its Lifetime Compared to lower cost Competitors

Find Out How. Choose Your Trailer Below.

Wabash National invented plate trailers in 1995. Their engineers and manufacturers then patented the DuraPlate® panel designs, and built a plant to manufacture them in the USA. It is 100% North American made. DuraPlate® was designed for the toughest conditions to avoid damage and maintenance, and is the gold standard for plate technology in transport trailers.

SIDE PANEL DESIGN

Competitor trailers import panels from Taiwan, from Xxentria, and some may assemble them in Mexico, to avoid higher labour costs in the USA. Some manufacturers then put the customers’ trailers on the rail and import them to Canada, where they could experience significant rail damage before final delivery to the customer. They have a history of bad corrosion and poor damage resistance in our environment. Their design also has to avoid the Wabash panel patents, so they have to reverse the rivet design, creating several issues of added cost and reduced resale value to customers. With all the cost of repairs, replacing panels, fighting corrosion, and lesser resale values, these competitor plate trailers cost you at least $1,500.00 per trailer more over its life, just for these reasons, than owning a DuraPlate® trailer.

Wabash DuraPlate® panels are designed with a patented connection to posts. This ensures our trailers have a smooth aluminum rivet head on the outside to make decals look great, and a bucked rivet end on the inside that is recessed and protected from being sheared from damage to eliminate repairs and maintenance.

Competitor panels are designed to avoid the Wabash patent, with a lower quality wall design that leaves your trailer susceptible to damage. To not violate Wabash’s patent, they design the sidewalls with the round head of the rivet on the inside, in the cargo area, exposed and susceptible to impact and damage.

Wabash panels are designed with a patented design, with the smooth head of the panel rivet on the outside of the trailer for a smooth, great-looking, long-lasting application of your company decals.

Competitors avoid Wabash’s patented connection, by reversing the rivet and exposing the bucked end of rivet on exterior panel. Decals now have to be cut around each rivet, expanding the vinyl, making your logos unattractive and requiring maintenance over time. Your company logos and images don’t look as good as they do on a DuraPlate®!

Wabash DuraPlate® panels are constructed from (2) galvanized steel sheets bonded to a high density polyethylene (HDPE) core. The design was invented and patented by Wabash National in 1995, and is the Gold Standardplate wall design in our industry. Although the panel is at the heart of the DuraPlate® trailer design, all the many additional design features in every DuraPlate® trailer has earned it the reputation as a work horse, as the gold standard in plate trailers, with the lowest cost of ownership design of any plate trailer on the road.

Some competitor trailers refer to their designs as ‘composite’, but they are actually the traditional ‘sheet and post’ design. They have aluminum outer sheets, galvanized steel posts, and interior ‘light’ steel liner – just like ‘sheet and post designs’. They even inject small amounts of urethane foam into the empty cavity between the inner and outer sheets to fill an empty void. This foam provides little structural support and does not prevent damage due to impact to the thin steel sheet on the interior panels. This design is a high cost maintenance design, and will require high damage interior and exterior repair costs over the trailer life, with considerably lower resale value than a Wabash DuraPlate® trailer. After a few years of use, you can see the damage and calculate how much has been spent in repair costs. With a DuraPlate® trailer, we’re confident there would have been no damage to repair.

Lifetime Savings on Side Panel Repair: $800 to $1,600

Wabash designed the DuraPlate® trailer to maintain a ‘damage-free interior’over the 15 years you will own your trailer; its scuffliner was designed with stainless steel rivets installed on a recessed top flange of the scuffliner, on 8″ centres, ensuring a strong attachment that will not be impacted by forklifts and pallets. And even if you find a way to hit it, the steel fastener will win the battle and not loosen, shear, or be damaged. Even a steel forklift wheel can’t dislodge this steel rivet. And if anything was to happen, there is another tough, steel rivet only 8″ away. You will likely never replace this rivet, and as a result, you will likely never spend any money repairing our scuffliner on a DuraPlate® plate trailer. It’s one of the many reasons, DuraPlate® is thegold standardin plate trailer designs.

SCUFFLINER DESIGN

Competitor scuffliners may be attached to the lower wall with aluminum rivets on 12″ centres. This is a cheaper, lower cost way to manufacture their trailer, allowing them to advertise a lower selling price to a customer. But the customer experiences the damage from this poor design. When the rivet is impacted by a forklift or pallet during loading and unloading, the force loosens or shears the aluminum rivet, and the scuffliner is no longer attached to the side wall. If not repaired immediately, the loose scuffliner gets snagged, and the damage gets worse, travelling down the scuffliner, shearing the next rivet, loosening up more scuffliner, and so on. Freight is also damaged from the jagged top edge of the steel scuffliner. This cheap, low cost manufacturing method is designed for a lower price up front, but it ends up costing you hundreds and thousands of dollars in repairs – and also reduces your resale value. DuraPlate® trailers are designed properly up front, to be maintenance-free on the inside over the 15 years you will own your DuraPlate® trailer, and another reason why it is thegold standardin plate trailer design.

Lifetime Savings on Scuffliner Repair: $1,000 to $2,000

Wabash designs corrosion out and builds strength and durability in to the bottom rail area. The crossmember attachment is made of steel cadmium plated torque head bolts. This innovative design eliminates corrosion of the fastener, and provides over 2.5 x more sheer strength of aluminum rivets to protect your trailer lower rail from damage from sideswipes. Another example of simple and intelligent designs in DuraPlate® plate vans, that lowers your repair costs, and lowers your total cost of ownership.

BASERAIL DESIGN – STEEL BOLTS VS. ALUMINUM RIVETS

Some competitor crossmember attachments use aluminum rivets, primarily because it’s easier to squeeze rivets with a machine during manufacturing, lowering manufacturing costs. Although it is a lower cost for manufacturing, it leaves the customer with base rail rivets that are susceptible to damage. Aluminum rivets have 2.5 times less shear strength than a steel bolt during a side swipe from another trailer, and exposes the customer to repair costs to replace rivets when sheared. In addition, the aluminum rivet fastened into a steel crossmember end clip create a corrosion issue which could cause the rivet to corrode and fail over time. This makes your trailer look tired and worth less on resale. What seems like savings up front in a lower trailer price, costs the customer $100s and $1,000s over the next 15 years.

Lifetime Savings on Sheared Rivet Repair: $1,000 to $2,000

Wabash designed galvanized landing gear leg wing plates and cross bracing to prevent corrosion in this highly visible area underneath the trailer. Galvanziation is the best, low cost solution in this area, to keep your trailer looking new, from the side of the road.

ANTI-CORROSION DESIGN

Some competitors avoid the cost of galvanizing landing gear wing plates to keep their manufacturing cost down. They pass the cost of repair and appearance to the customer who thinks a lower cost trailer is a better purchase. In reality, their wing plates will eventually look like this, cost more in repair, downtime, and reduced resale value, than if galvanization was included in the price up front.

Back in 1997, Wabash designed their DuraPlate® trailer with a stainless steel front apron plate. This eliminates corrosion in this highly visible area of your trailer, as well as prevents damage when impacted. This saves you significant repair costs and increases your resale value considerably. This has been part of the Wabash design from the beginning.

Some Competitor front apron plates and pick up angles are manufactured with aluminum and steel causing a corrosion issue The trailer may look okay when it is new, but over time, it will get damaged when your steel fifth wheel impacts that piece of aluminum, or the carbon steel will start to rust resulting from the impact. In all these scenarios, your lower front rail may corrode, may require repairs, and your trailer will lose resale value due to its worn appearance.

Lifetime Savings on Corrosion Repair: $1,000 to $2,000

Our standard tires are Tier 1 Bridgestone tires that have the highest quality casings, and can be retreaded 2 or 3 times. These are the lowest life cycle cost tires you can own.

TIRE RETREADING

Competitor trailers may have Tier 2 or Tier 3 tires that are lower cost up front, that have lower quality casings, and are of lower quality than Tier 1 Bridgestone. These cheaper tires may only be retreaded once or twice, before you have to replace them. After the first or second retread, the Tier 2 or 3 tires will need a new casing which costs an additional $100.00 more per tire. Based on a tandem trailer, which has 8 tires per trailer, your added cost would be $800.00 per trailer.

Wabash trailer scuffliners are constructed with Versitex, which is fused to the liner creating a sealed connection between the scuffliner and sidewall liner, inserted into an aluminum floor angle protecting the bottom of the scuffliner from ever being snagged.

SCUFFLINER DESIGN

Some Competitor scuffliners use aluminum which are easy to dent, puncture, and bend from impact by forklifts. And the top of the scuffliner often pulls away from the wall, creating a cavity for debris and bacteria. This design is a low cost design to manufacture, but a high lifecycle cost to repair. Just one small cut in the aluminum scuffliner costs $200.00 per repair. You can expect to pay over $1,000+ on scuffliner repairs over 10 years of use.

Lifetime Savings on Scuffliner Repair: $1,000 to $2,000

Wabash trailers are designed with floor screws fastening through the aluminum floor, underlying floor stringers, and into the supporting cross members beneath. Each floor board is positively connected in multiple locations along each cross member. The entire floor system is tied into the cross members. The screws are recessed into the composite floor stringers to ensure no corrosion between the screw head and the floor.

FLOOR SYSTEM DESIGN

Some competitor trailers use a “floating floor design”, that allows the aluminum floor to “float” above the crossmembers. This design can result in high repair costs when the rear threshold weakens due to loading and unloading. The floor system can ‘shift’ over the cross members, causing the floor structure to weaken. The end result can be a wavy floor that costs several thousands $$ to repair.

Wabash trailer design uses high density polyethylene (HDPE) floor stringers. This design ensures strength and longevity in your floor system. The HDPE stringers are impervious to moisture, so they will not absorb moisture, swell, or weaken. The floor screw is driven through the stringer and into the cross member to eliminate the the rolling of stringer, and with pre countersunk holes to ensure the screw is recessed in the stringer every time.

Some competitors have recently introduced composite stringers into their design. However, they are fastening the stringers on the bottom flange. This fastener is not in the vertical plane of force caused by the forklift, and may cause the floor stringer to “roll”, causing the floor to become wavy and heave. This may be a high maintenance cost design and a concern for long term performance.

The Wabash HDPE stringers are also over 150 pounds lighter than wood stringers, helping make the Wabash reefer the lightest reefer trailer on the road! And, this design is also good for the environment, and the stringers are 100% recyclable.

Some competitors are still using hardwood stringers in their floor design. Compared to HDPE, these woods can be heavy. If water gets into the sub floor of this trailer, the wood may absorb moisture, weaken, and the wood fibres may break under weight and stress from constant loading and unloading by forklifts. The stringers may then start to fail, and the floor may become wavy, weaken, and require repair. Repairing a floor with weakened floor stringers is expensive, typically over $5,000.00. And, this wood species is harvested from rain forests, which are an important part of our global ecosystem.

Lifetime Savings on Floor Repair: $1,000 to $2,000

The Wabash trailer design includes roof protection from damage caused when being impacted by tree limbs. The Wabash roof incorporates an additional 1/8″ thick aluminum roof protector at front of roof to protect the roof from this damage. Tree limbs can be very hard on trailers, and when a truck passes under a tree with large branches and limbs, the front of the reefer takes the impact.

ROOF DESIGN

Competitor trailers have little to no added roof protection from tree limbs. And this area is rarely inspected for damage. Unrepaired holes in the roof sheet will allow water to enter the roof system, increasing the weight of the trailer considerably, and lowering the thermal efficiency of the trailer. Reduced thermal efficiency results in more reefer fuel consumed to keep the trailer at set point.

Lifetime Savings on Roof Repair: $1,000 to $2,000

The bottom rail design on a Wabash reefer includes stainless steel ‘torque head-style’ bolts with nylon washers. These stainless steel bolts have 2.5 times more shear strength of aluminum rivets. This is a critical safety area of a trailer to prevent floor failure. When a trailer is sideswiped, these stainless steel fasteners will not get sheared off. Your Wabash floor that is connected by floor screws through the cross members, will stay firmly attached to the base rail. Also, the Wabash design prevents galvanic corrosion of the bottom rail. The steel bolt is protected from the aluminum rail with the nylon gasket, and the steel bolt goes through a steel end clip, so no galvanic corrosion is possible with this design.

BASERAIL DESIGN – STEEL BOLTS VS. ALUMINUM RIVETS

Some Competitor trailers use aluminum rivets to attach cross members to the bottom rail. These manufacturers use this design because it is faster and cheaper to manufacture, by using presses to squeeze the rivets, rather than manually attach the base rails with stainless steel bolts. The problem is that when the aluminum rivet is squeezed through the aluminum bottom rail, it is also squeezed through a steel end clip, that is attached to the steel cross member. This creates an opportunity for galvanic corrosion, and may cause the rivet to corrode, weaken, and become easily damaged. The aluminum rivet attachment also has 2.5 times LESS shear strength than the Wabash stainless steel bolt with nylon washer.

Lifetime Savings on Sheared Rivet Repair: $1,000 to $2,000

Wabash reefer trailers are designed with galvanized landing gear wing plates and cross bracing, to eliminate corrosion in this visible area of the trailer.

ANTI-CORROSION DESIGN

Some competitors still use carbon steel landing gear wing plates and cross bracing. The manufacturers will then either paint or put a coating on them. But the paint and coatings will not last for 5-10 years, and they will likely corrode over time, becoming rusty and unsightly. Corrosion in this area is a signal to roadside inspectors of a poorly maintained fleet, and may lead to more inspections and fines. Repairs to corrosion in this area will exceed $1,000 each time.

Wabash also designed their reefer trailer front apron plate to be corrosion-free. They designed a full stainless steel plate which will not corrode. By using stainless steel material, this design resists damage due to impact by truck fifth wheels, lowering or eliminating repair costs when this occurs. As well, Wabash built in as standard, a full width pick up angle constructed with stainless steel, to deflect fifth wheels under the trailer, and avoid damage to front walls.

Some Competitor front apron plates and pick up angles are manufactured with aluminum and steel causing a corrosion issue. The trailer may look okay when it is new, but over time, it will get damaged when your steel fifth wheel impacts that piece of aluminum, or the carbon steel will start to rust resulting from the impact. In all these scenarios, your lower front rail will corrode, may require repairs, and your trailer will lose resale value due to its worn appearance.

Lifetime Savings on Corrosion Repair: $1,000 to $2,000

Our standard tires are Tier 1 Bridgestone tires that have the highest quality casings, and can be retreaded 2 or 3 times. These are the lowest life cycle cost tires you can own.

TIRE RETREADING

Competitor trailers may have Tier 2 or Tier 3 tires that are lower cost up front, and are of lower quality than Tier 1 Bridgestone. These cheaper tires may only be retreaded once or twice, before you have to replace them. After the first or second retread, the Tier 2 or 3 tires will need a new casing which costs at least $100.00 more per tire. Based on a tandem trailer, which has 8 tires per trailer, your added cost would be over $800.00 per trailer.

Wabash National invented plate trailers in 1995. Their engineers and manufacturers then patented the DuraPlate® panel designs, and built a plant to manufacture them in the USA. It is 100% North American made. DuraPlate® was designed for the toughest conditions to avoid damage and maintenance, and is the gold standard for plate technology in transport trailers.

Competitor trailers import panels from Taiwan, from Xxentria, and some may assemble them in Mexico, to avoid higher labour costs in the USA. Some manufacturers then put the customers’ trailers on the rail and import them to Canada, where they could experience significant rail damage before final delivery to the customer. They have a history of bad corrosion and poor damage resistance in our environment. Their design also has to avoid the Wabash panel patents, so they have to reverse the rivet design, creating several issues of added cost and reduced resale value to customers. With all the cost of repairs, replacing panels, fighting corrosion, and lesser resale values, these competitor plate trailers cost you at least $1,500.00 per trailer more over its life, just for these reasons, than owning a DuraPlate® trailer.

Wabash DuraPlate® panels are designed with a patented connection to posts. This ensures our trailers have a smooth aluminum rivet head on the outside to make decals look great, and a bucked rivet end on the inside that is recessed and protected from being sheared from damage to eliminate repairs and maintenance.

Competitor panels are designed to avoid the Wabash patent, with a lower quality wall design that leaves your trailer susceptible to damage. To not violate Wabash’s patent, they design the sidewalls with the round head of the rivet on the inside, in the cargo area, exposed and susceptible to impact and damage.

Wabash panels are designed with a patented design, with the smooth head of the panel rivet on the outside of the trailer for a smooth, great-looking, long-lasting application of your company decals.

Competitors avoid Wabash’s patented connection, by reversing the rivet and exposing the bucked end of rivet on exterior panel. Decals now have to be cut around each rivet, expanding the vinyl, making your logos unattractive and requiring maintenance over time. Your company logos and images don’t look as good as they do on a DuraPlate®!

Wabash DuraPlate® panels are constructed from (2) galvanized steel sheets bonded to a high density polyethylene (HDPE) core. The design was invented and patented by Wabash National in 1995, and is the Gold Standardplate wall design in our industry. Although the panel is at the heart of the DuraPlate® trailer design, all the many additional design features in every DuraPlate® trailer has earned it the reputation as a work horse, as the gold standard in plate trailers, with the lowest cost of ownership design of any plate trailer on the road.

Some competitor trailers refer to their designs as ‘composite’, but they are actually the traditional ‘sheet and post’ design. They have aluminum outer sheets, galvanized steel posts, and interior ‘light’ steel liner – just like ‘sheet and post designs’. They even inject small amounts of urethane foam into the empty cavity between the inner and outer sheets to fill an empty void. This foam provides little strucural support and does not prevent damage due to impact to the thin steel sheet on the interior panels. This design is a high cost maintenance design, and will require high damage interior and exterior repair costs over the trailer life, with considerably lower resale value than a Wabash DuraPlate® trailer. After a few years of use, you can see the damage and calculate how much has been spent in repair costs. With a DuraPlate® trailer, we’re confident there would have been no damage to repair.

Lifetime Savings on Side Panel Repair: $800 to $1,600

SCUFFLINER DESIGN

Wabash designed the DuraPlate® trailer to maintain a ‘damage-free interior’over the 15 years you will own your trailer; its scuffliner was designed with stainless steel rivets installed on a recessed top flange of the scuffliner, on 8″ centres, ensuring a strong attachment that will not be impacted by forklifts and pallets. And even if you find a way to hit it, the steel fastener will win the battle and not loosen, shear, or be damaged. Even a steel forklift wheel can’t dislodge this steel rivet. And if anything was to happen, there is another tough, steel rivet only 8″ away. You will likely never replace this rivet, and as a result, you will likely never spend any money repairing our scuffliner on a DuraPlate® plate trailer. It’s one of the many reasons, DuraPlate® is thegold standardin plate trailer designs.

Competitor scuffliners may be attached to the lower wall with aluminum rivets on 12″ centres. This is a cheaper, lower cost way to manufacture their trailer, allowing them to advertise a lower selling price to a customer. But the customer experiences the damage from this poor design. When the rivet is impacted by a forklift or pallet during loading and unloading, the force loosens or shears the aluminum rivet, and the scuffliner is no longer attached to the side wall. If not repaired immediately, the loose scuffliner gets snagged, and the damage gets worse, travelling down the scuffliner, shearing the next rivet, loosening up more scuffliner, and so on. Freight is also damaged from the jagged top edge of the steel scuffliner. This cheap, low cost manufacturing method is designed for a lower price up front, but it ends up costing you hundreds and thousands of dollars in repairs – and also reduces your resale value. DuraPlate® trailers are designed properly up front, to be maintenance-free on the inside over the 15 years you will own your DuraPlate® trailer, and another reason why it is thegold standardin plate trailer design.

Lifetime Savings on Scuffliner Repair: $1,000 to $2,000

BASERAIL DESIGN – STEEL BOLTS VS. ALUMINUM RIVETS

Wabash designs corrosion out and builds strength and durability in to the bottom rail area. The crossmember attachment is made of steel cadmium plated torque head bolts. This innovative design eliminates corrosion of the fastener, and provides over 2.5 x more sheer strength of aluminum rivets to protect your trailer lower rail from damage from sideswipes. Another example of simple and intelligent designs in DuraPlate® plate vans, that lowers your repair costs, and lowers your total cost of ownership.

Some competitor crossmember attachments use aluminum rivets, primarily becuase it’s easier to squeeze rivets wtih a machine during manufacturing, lowering manufacturing costs. Although it is a lower cost for manufacturing, it leaves the customer with base rail rivets that are susceptible to damage. Aluminum rivets have 2.5 times less shear strength than a steel bolt during a side swipe from another trailer, and exposes the customer to repair costs to replace rivets when sheared. In addition, the aluminum rivet fastened into a steel crossmember end clip create a corrosion issue which could cause the rivet to corrode and fail over time. This makes your trailer look tired and worth less on resale. What seems like savings up front in a lower trailer price, costs the customer $100s and $1,000s over the next 15 years.

Lifetime Savings on Sheared Rivet Repair: $1,000 to $2,000

ANTI-CORROSION DESIGN

Wabash designed galvanized landing gear leg wing plates and cross bracing to prevent corrosion in this highly visible area underneath the trailer. Galvanziation is the best, low cost solution in this area, to keep your trailer looking new, from the side of the road.

Some competitors avoid the cost of galvanizing landing gear wing plates to keep their manufacturing cost down. They pass the cost of repair and appearance to the customer who thinks a lower cost trailer is a better purchase. In reality, their wing plates will eventually look like this, cost more in repair, downtime, and reduced resale value, than if galvanization was included in the price up front.

Back in 1997, Wabash designed their DuraPlate® trailer with a stainless steel front apron plate. This eliminates corrosion in this highly visible area of your trailer, as well as prevents damage when impacted. This saves you significant repair costs and increases your resale value considerably. This has been part of the Wabash design from the beginning.

Some Competitor front apron plates and pick up angles are manufactured with aluminum and steel causing a corrosion issue. The trailer may look okay when it is new, but over time, it will get damaged when your steel fifth wheel impacts that piece of aluminum, or the carbon steel will start to rust resulting from the impact. In all these scenarios, your lower front rail may corrode, may require repairs, and your trailer will lose resale value due to its worn appearance.

Lifetime Savings on Corrosion Repair: $1,000 to $2,000

TIRE RETREADING

Our standard tires are Tier 1 Bridgestone tires that have the highest quality casings, and can be retreaded 2 or 3 times. These are the lowest life cycle cost tires you can own.

Competitor trailers may have Tier 2 or Tier 3 tires that are lower cost up front, that have lower quality casings, and are of lower quality than Tier 1 Bridgestone. These cheaper tires may only be retreaded once or twice, before you have to replace them. After the first or second retread, the Tier 2 or 3 tires will need a new casing which costs an additional $100.00 more per tire. Based on a tandem trailer, which has 8 tires per trailer, your added cost would be $800.00 per trailer.

Wabash trailer scuffliners are constructed with Versitex, which is fused to the liner creating a sealed connection between the scuffliner and sidewall liner, inserted into an aluminum floor angle protecting the bottom of the scuffliner from ever being snagged.

Some Competitor scuffliners use aluminum which are easy to dent, puncture, and bend from impact by forklifts. And the top of the scuffliner often pulls away from the wall, creating a cavity for debris and bacteria. This design is a low cost design to manufacture, but a high lifecycle cost to repair. Just one small cut in the aluminum scuffliner costs $200.00 per repair. You can expect to pay over $1,000+ on scuffliner repairs over 10 years of use.

Lifetime Savings on Scuffliner Repair: $1,000 to $2,000

FLOOR SYSTEM DESIGN

Wabash trailers are designed with floor screws fastening through the aluminum floor, underlying floor stringers, and into the supporting cross members beneath. Each floor board is positively connected in multiple locations along each cross member. The entire floor system is tied into the cross members. The screws are recessed into the composite floor stringers to ensure no corrosion between the screw head and the floor.

Some competitor trailers use a “floating floor design”, that allows the aluminum floor to “float” above the crossmembers. This design can result in high repair costs when the rear threshold weakens due to loading and unloading. The floor system can ‘shift’ over the cross members, causing the floor structure to weaken. The end result can be a wavy floor that costs several thousands $$ to repair.

Wabash trailer design uses high density polyethylene (HDPE) floor stringers. This design ensures strength and longevity in your floor system. The HDPE stringers are impervious to moisture, so they will not absorb moisture, swell, or weaken. The floor screw is driven through the stringer and into the cross member to eliminate the the rolling of stringer, and with pre countersunk holes to ensure the screw is recessed in the stringer every time.

Some competitors have recently introduced composite stringers into their design. However, they are fastening the stringers on the bottom flange. This fastener is not in the vertical plane of force caused by the forklift, and may cause the floor stringer to “roll”, causing the floor to become wavy and heave. This may be a high maintenance cost design and a concern for long term performance.

The Wabash HDPE stringers are also over 150 pounds lighter than wood stringers, helping make the Wabash reefer the lightest reefer trailer on the road! And, this design is also good for the environment, and the stringers are 100% recyclable.

Some competitors are still using hardwood stringers in their floor design. Compared to HDPE, these woods can be heavy. If water gets into the sub floor of this trailer, the wood may absorb moisture, weaken, and the wood fibres may break under weight and stress from constant loading and unloading by forklifts. The stringers may then start to fail, and the floor may become wavy, weaken, and require repair. Repairing a floor with weakened floor stringers is expensive, typically over $5,000.00. And, this wood species is harvested from rain forests, which are an important part of our global ecosystem.

Lifetime Savings on Floor Repair: $1,000 to $2,000

ROOF DESIGN

The Wabash trailer design includes roof protection from damage caused when being impacted by tree limbs. The Wabash roof incorporates an additional 1/8″ thick aluminum roof protector at front of roof to protect the roof from this damage. Tree limbs can be very hard on trailers, and when a truck passes under a tree with large branches and limbs, the front of the reefer takes the impact.

Competitor trailers have little to no added roof protection from tree limbs. And this area is rarely inspected for damage. Unrepaired holes in the roof sheet will allow water to enter the roof system, increasing the weight of the trailer considerably, and lowering the thermal efficiency of the trailer. Reduced thermal efficiency results in more reefer fuel consumed to keep the trailer at set point.

Lifetime Savings on Roof Repair: $1,000 to $2,000

BASERAIL DESIGN – STEEL BOLTS VS. ALUMINUM RIVETS

The bottom rail design on a Wabash reefer includes stainless steel ‘torque head-style’ bolts with nylon washers. These stainless steel bolts have 2.5 times more shear strength of aluminum rivets. This is a critical safety area of a trailer to prevent floor failure. When a trailer is sideswiped, these stainless steel fasteners will not get sheared off. Your Wabash floor that is connected by floor screws through the cross members, will stay firmly attached to the base rail. Also, the Wabash design prevents galvanic corrosion of the bottom rail. The steel bolt is protected from the aluminum rail with the nylon gasket, and the steel bolt goes through a steel end clip, so no galvanic corrosion is possible with this design.

Some Competitor trailers use aluminum rivets to attach cross members to the bottom rail. These manufacturers use this design because it is faster and cheaper to manufacture, by using presses to squeeze the rivets, rather than manually attach the base rails with stainless steel bolts. The problem is that when the aluminum rivet is squeezed through the aluminum bottom rail, it is also squeezed through a steel end clip, that is attached to the steel cross member. This creates an opportunity for galvanic corrosion, and may cause the rivet to corrode, weaken, and become easily damaged. The aluminum rivet attachment also has 2.5 times LESS shear strength than the Wabash stainless steel bolt with nylon washer.

Lifetime Savings on Sheared Rivet Repair: $1,000 to $2,000

ANTI-CORROSION DESIGN

Wabash reefer trailers are designed with galvanized landing gear wing plates and cross bracing, to eliminate corrosion in this visible area of the trailer.

Some competitors still use carbon steel landing gear wing plates and cross bracing. The manufacturers will then either paint or put a coating on them. But the paint and coatings will not last for 5-10 years, and they will likely corrode over time, becoming rusty and unsightly. Corrosion in this area is a signal to roadside inspectors of a poorly maintained fleet, and may lead to more inspections and fines. Repairs to corrosion in this area will exceed $1,000 each time.

Wabash also designed their reefer trailer front apron plate to be corrosion-free. They designed a full stainless steel plate which will not corrode. By using stainless steel material, this design resists damage due to impact by truck fifth wheels, lowering or eliminating repair costs when this occurs. As well, Wabash built in as standard, a full width pick up angle constructed with stainless steel, to deflect fifth wheels under the trailer, and avoid damage to front walls.

Some Competitor front apron plates and pick up angles are manufactured with aluminum and steel causing a corrosion issue. The trailer may look okay when it is new, but over time, it will get damaged when your steel fifth wheel impacts that piece of aluminum, or the carbon steel will start to rust resulting from the impact. In all these scenarios, your lower front rail will corrode, may require repairs, and your trailer will lose resale value due to its worn appearance.

Lifetime Savings on Corrosion Repair: $1,000 to $2,000

TIRE RETREADING

Our standard tires are Tier 1 Bridgestone tires that have the highest quality casings, and can be retreaded 2 or 3 times. These are the lowest life cycle cost tires you can own.

Competitor trailers may have Tier 2 or Tier 3 tires that are lower cost up front, and are of lower quality than Tier 1 Bridgestone. These cheaper tires may only be retreaded once or twice, before you have to replace them. After the first or second retread, the Tier 2 or 3 tires will need a new casing which costs at least $100.00 more per tire. Based on a tandem trailer, which has 8 tires per trailer, your added cost would be over $800.00 per trailer.